Alongside the coast of Maine as we’re readying for Christmas, our out of doors cultivation has come to a screeching halt as the bottom is roofed by a foot and a half of snow. So as to add emphasis to this being the time of the shortest days of the 12 months, a half inch of ice fell the previous couple of days, making a pleasant, preserving crust on the snow.

For a gardener, it is a time of planning, organizing, and preparation. For me, I’m searching for a theme for subsequent 12 months’s backyard designs at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. We’re redesigning our entry stroll, areas round our entry garden, plus seasonal shows all through the gardens. In on the lookout for inspiration, I begin working by means of the same old candidates: Victorian carpet bedding schemes, Beatrix Farrand along with her free-flowing perennials, Roberto Burle Marx and his huge flows of brilliant colours, and Piet Oudolf’s visions of grass inflorescences dancing with salvias and alliums.

The issue is that every one of this has been finished earlier than. Most gardens wish to replicate one among these designers or some variant of their designs. A part of the explanation I got here to Maine was to be at a younger backyard the place we may do issues in a different way. A part of doing that is to be taught which vegetation will survive and which vegetation will battle. I discovered final summer season that tropicals that thrive within the south and mid-Atlantic, will sit round like a dozing canine all summer season, solely to peak in mid-September because the summer season crowds have moved again to their occupations which afford them the flexibility to summer season in Maine.

Lengthy-story made brief, I began fascinated by what sort of dwelling interiors I like one of the best and was drawn to the furnishings of Hans Wegner. If cash have been no object and we didn’t have 4 children, our dwelling can be an assemblage of Scandinavian trendy design. Aha, that’s after I started trying to find Scandinavian backyard design. We share considerably comparable climates and brief summers, I believed, so the vegetation and designs could be price investigating.

Proper now, I’m poring by means of the gardens of Ulf Nordfjell. Nordfjell has a easy aesthetic with clear strains and blocks of vegetation. The colours are refined and used with restraint, when used in any respect. Like a Wegner wishbone chair, the look is definitely understood but relaxed and comfy. Nordfjell entered gardens on the Chelsea Flower Present in London in 2007 and 2009. I noticed his backyard from 2007 in individual and thought it was good. All the different gardens appeared to be competing with each other to have the most important constructions and vegetation simply seemed to be filling within the gaps. Nordfjell’s backyard was structured across the vegetation. From what I recollect it used inexperienced, white, and a little bit of purple for shade. Not the garish combos of his opponents. He received a gold medal for this backyard solely to come back again in 2009 to take a Greatest in Present award.

The problem within the coming weeks is to determine how you can take this inspiration and make it match our current context. The strains of our gardens are extra natural and curving. Our visitors are drawn extra to paint than shades of inexperienced, gray, and white. I’ll proceed wanting by means of his designs, studying about his inspirations, after which arising with plant combos which might be our personal.

How about you? How do you design? Who’re your inspirational designers? What cool issues are you pondering of attempting to drag off for 2014?

–Rodney

Pictures: englishgarden.se, Shoot Gardening, tradgardsform, grysigurdsdotter

Extra nice Swedish Gardens and Chelsea Flower Present protection